March 16, 2007

In its fumbling attempts to explain the purge of United States attorneys, the Bush administration has argued that the fired prosecutors were not aggressive enough about addressing voter fraud. It is a phony argument; there is no evidence that any of them ignored real instances of voter fraud. But more than that, it is a window on what may be a major reason for some of the firings.

In partisan Republican circles, the pursuit of voter fraud is code for suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people. By resisting pressure to crack down on “fraud,” the fired United States attorneys actually appear to have been standing up for the integrity of the election system....

There is no evidence of rampant voter fraud in this country. Rather, Republicans under Mr. Bush have used such allegations as an excuse to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning groups....

These are very harsh charges. I want to know more. If there really is "no evidence of rampant voter fraud in this country," is there some evidence of something less that "rampant" fraud that deserved investigation? Should we simply equate concern about voter fraud with Republican politics and, further, link that to hostility to the poor and minorities. This is a dramatic, bulky, bulgy packaging of issues!

115 comments:

I'm a partisan Republican in a lot of partisan Republican circles, and I've never heard anybody talk about suppressing votes of anybody.

"Suppressing votes of minorities" in certain circles of the liberal establishment seems to be code for preventing illegal immigrants, felons, and dead people from voting; that is, you know, enforcing the voting laws.

Okay, so that's clear. "Support voter fraud, or it proves you hate black people. And the poor." It's cliche, but the final NY Times headline will read - "World Ends. Women, Minorities and the Poor Hardest Hit."

Seems to me, there was some political party in 2000 up until they won a lot of elections in 2006, that was extremely concerned about ballot issues. All they seemed to talk about was stolen elections. I just can't recall which party that was. It was some three syllable name... Hypocrites... Demagogues... no, Democrats! That's it, the Democrats! they were concerned about ballot integrity.

How fraudulent voter registration and illegal voting (with the subsequent dilution of votes) is any less concern than butterfly ballots and black box problems, is beyond me.

But then, as the NY Times says, I must just be speaking in code, and HdHouse and Reality Check should feel free to interpret my comments as "I really, really hate black people, and the poor."

I think that you could as legitimately suggest that the Democrats opposition to photo ids, pushing to allow convicted felons to vote (as is currently happening in CO), and screams of disenfranchisement, are all means for Democratic machines to generate false and illegal votes.

The Democrat Party has a long and maybe sordid reputation for using illegal voting to win elections, starting in the late 19th Century, and extending through the 2004 elections.

LBJ supposedly personally helped stuff ballot boxes with fradulent votes to help himself win. JFK supposedly won the 1960 election by winning Ill. after his father had overpaid for the state (and was apparently heard complaining about it afterwords).

More recently, ailing Sen. Johnson of SD won reelection by what looks like double voting and cigarettes for votes schemes on the Indian reservations. The gov. of Wash. won by less than the overvote in King County, and Gore's win in NM in 2000 was less than the overvote he got in some counties. And the pattern of overvoted ballots in at least one Democratic county in Florida sure looks like someone took a long sharp object and ran it through the Gore column in a stack of ballots and invalidated all the Bush votes.

Maybe it is all code. But maybe it is legitimate. Maybe the reason that Democrats oppose photo id so much is that they are so heavily invested in winning through voter fraud that they can't afford the vote drop that validating all ballots would bring. And the NYT is so heavily invested in Democrats winning, regardless of legality, that they trot out this "code" thing.

I would suspect that the big reason that this is coming out now is that the U.S. Atty. for NM was fired partially for not being zealous enough in pursuing allegations of voter fraud there.

What is more logical, that the Administration thinks that it lost NM in 2000 through fraud and barely won it in 2004 despite what they believe is massive Democrat machine fraud there? Or that they are speaking in some sort of "code" so obtuse that only the NYT understands it, and not those of us who are lifelong Republicans? (actually, my mother's family goes back to at least 1860).

Umm, Ann was asking for evidence that the NYT editorial was wrong. Apparently she was too lazy to google the answer for herself. Apparently the commenters so far are also too lazy to provide any actual evidence, just baseless allegations.

So where is the evidence of "massive voter fraud".

I will note that both the notorious effort in Florida to purge voter roles seemed designed to disenfranchise black voters because of the way it compared voter roles and prison records. It purged voters only when both race and name matched on both records. Because of this, hispanic citizens, who are of predominately Cuban descent in Florida, were not purged, because they were "hispanic" on the prison roles while they would be "white" on the voter records. Blacks of course would be "Black" on both records.

The Attorney General of Georgia was forced to admit that the photo ID requirement passed in that state addressed a problem that did not exist (fraudulent voting at the polls) while burdening a significant minority population, especially elderly black voters who may not even be able to prove their citizenship because of a lack of birth records, while doing absolutely nothing to address the voting method with the greatest potential for abuse (absentee voting).

Of course later in the thread Ann will claim she never said she didn't agree with the NYT editorial. Which I guess is true.

I hear a lot from my more liberal friends about Republican candidates and elected officials using code for this and that. But the problem is that most of us lifelong Republicans don't have the code book. Rather, the only people who seem to have the code book are the NYT and some of the more fervid denziens of the left side of the blogosphere.

So let's dissect it some. There are two types of voter fraud going on and its fairly out in the open as to what the charges are.

One fraud is "vote counting". The electronic ballot with no paper trail. There have been howls about this for years and why, why, why is the inclusion of a papertrail repeatedly rejected by the then GOP majority? Why is that? What happens in Florida or Ohio? Why is it that significant numbers of people show up at the polls and make "no choices and vote for no one"?

A second option is the interference with casting the vote. That can be indiscriminate purges of voters from the rolls, it can be the placement or lack thereof of voting booths and stations in districts, ... heck, it even can be Tom DeLay's congressional staff showing up in Florida and causing a minor riot outside the chad recount room and that pinchedface Secretary of State closing the count down out of "fear".

It can be jamming the phone banks on election day or it simply can be strategic placement of "roadside auto inspection checks".

That there seems to be a pattern indicates a concerted effort and all under the guise of "let's make sure there is NO VOTER FRAUD" as if a zillion illegal aliens (who are here by the way to work at slave labor rates for whom??) are going to sneak into the polls and steal an election. FAT CHANCE.

pushing to allow convicted felons to vote (as is currently happening in CO),

Only fourteen states bar convicted felons who have completed their sentences from voting, and in only ten of those is the disenfranchisement for life. In Vermont and Maine felons are allowed to vote even while serving their terms.

Bruce Hayden said..."I hear a lot from my more liberal friends about Republican candidates and elected officials using code for this and that. But the problem is that most of us lifelong Republicans don't have the code book."

Bruce...i'll give you the benefit of the doubt and figure you are innocent, in spite of your previous post (Nixon didn't demand a recount in Illinois in 1960 because he matched Kennedy vote fraud in downstate but you didn't know that or just chose to forget that)...but if you don't see a pattern in battleground states then not only don't you own the code book...you also don't have a clue.

Picking on one state like that is cherry picking. And showing that that one state didn't provably have voter fraud issues says nothing about the other 49 states, the District of Columbia, and our various territories.

Apparently wanting to enforce voter fraud election laws is code in liberal circles for not interfering with vote buying. The East St. Louis is a classic. $5 is the going rate to buy votes, but when the democrat running is viewed as a racist, the cost per vote is $10.

When someone can explain why it was okay for Clinton to fire all 93 prosecuters in 1993 (including those investigating prominent democrats such as Rostenkowski and Clinton himself), but it is not okay for Bush to fire 8 prosecuters for failing to follow his priorities, then I will start to think there is something to this "scandal".

The Republican-appointed US Attorneys investigated allegations of Democratic voter fraud and found none. Is that because Democrats are so savvy, or because Republicans are too ignorant to know where to look? Or is it because there wasn't any substantive fraud?

Maybe Nixon did not demand a recount because of his own voting irregularities, or maybe he was just doing the right thing. At this point, we just don't know. How can anyone go back almost 50 years and prove that one side cheated more than the other? The whole Kennedy thing seems to be a result of a second hand quote of his father, ever the businessman, complaining about paying too much.

Nevertheless, whether Nixon cheated as much as Kennedy in 1960 in Ill. isn't really the issue here, since my point is that illegal voting has a long sordid history (esp. with political machines) in this country. Those on the left, like Freder, seem to be denying that.

What a joke, the NY Times has really outdone itself. Is it that much to ask to show ID at the polls, how ridiculous! Like the above poster said, I also have not heard such commentary in partisan republican circles.

Besides, claiming that they other side is doing wrong while you yourself are doing wrong is a classic Liberal political tactic.

My father was disenfranchised in the Chicago vote in 1960. Here is what happened to him: There were certain parts of the city that were heavy republican districts - my parents lived Rogers Park, which was one of the districts. My parents went to register some months before the election. When they showed up at the polls on election day only my mothers name was on the roll. The election workers claimed that postcards had been sent out to verify the registration some weeks before the election and that people were required to mail in the postcards to be included on the rolls. The fraud was that the verification cards were never sent. Despite the cards being never sent, somehow my mothers name still showed up on the roll but not my fathers (the white male was kept off). The poll workers told my father that he had the option of course to go downtown and wait all day in line to get a new card and vote there. But my father had a job and was unable to do that. Thus, he was not allowed to vote in the 1960 election (he would have voted for Nixon).

The Republican-appointed US Attorneys investigated allegations of Democratic voter fraud and found none. Is that because Democrats are so savvy, or because Republicans are too ignorant to know where to look? Or is it because there wasn't any substantive fraud?

My vote is on #3. But extrapolating from that to the general case commits the same logical falacy that I suggested that Freder was making.

You could make the same argument about voter suppression - we repeatedly hear about Whitey suppressing minority voting here, there, and everywhere, and almost invariably it turns out that either no one didn't get to vote, or there was a completely innocent explanation.

Yet, historically, Southern Democrats (supposedly now converted to Republicans) did suppress the Black vote throughout the Jim Crow era by various forms of intimidation, and for better than a century, Democratic (and sometimes Republican) party machines routinely provided large numbers of illegal votes for their candidates. These are fairly well accepted historical facts. And maybe the number of votes manufactured by the big city machines in the North for the Democrats would offset the Black votes they lost through intimidation in the South.

I think that whether it be vote suppression or illegal voting, most Americans hope and expect that that era of our history is over now.

And I think it mostly is - even 50 years ago, there was still probably a lot of Black vote suppression going on, and a lot of the elections seemingly were being swung by illegal voting. Now, there are still whifs of it around the country, but little seems to be able to be proven, despite the strong efforts of one party or the other.

Consider the following insider trading scheme: When companies make big announcements, the SEC reviews the pre-announcement trading for unusually large transactions that might be insider trades. Accordingly, to avoid being detected, once you get some insider information, get a whole lot of people to make very small trades and give you all or at least most of their profits.

Here are three obvious objections:

1) The scheme won't be successful unless you get lots of people involved, but getting lots of people involved increases the risk that one of them will inform the authorities.

2) The scheme depends on getting lots of people to commit a federal crime who will receive very little if any benefit for doing so.

3) Even if someone seemed to agree to assist you in your scheme, there's no way of enforcing that promise.

How are these objections not equally applicable to any illegal voting scheme? I can imagine various forms of election fraud that involve tampering with a ballot box or voting machine, but the idea that you could get lots and lots of people to vote illegally just doesn't seem workable to me. You would need too many people and even if you were paying them, there's no way of confirming that they did what you paid them for. Is anyone aware of any time that such a scheme has ever been pulled off?

Someone mentioned it above but it boils down to this - the Dems are disingenuous at best and downright dishonest at worst about the whole voter fraud issue. They complain about it when they lose, but nary a peep about it when they win as they did this past November. All of a sudden it's all "the American people have spoken" instead of "recount, recount, recount."

The two examples cited by the NYT as overblown GOP fears of voter fraud were unconvincing.

1. The Washington state Governor's race. I'm doing this from memory, but it went something like this: GOP candidate wins on election day by very slim margin. Automatic recount rules kick in, the GOP wins again. The "every vote must be counted" guys step in. King County (Seattle) the Dem stronghold then recounts again and magic ballots keep turning up till lo and behold the Dem candidate wins, and all recounts are fought by the same folks who wanted counts before. Charges that miltary absentee votes are excluded and that felons were allowed to vote. It's not a black and whote case on either side.

2. USA Lam in San Diego. She was on written lists to be fired, Before the Duke Cunningham case hit the news and she even began her Duke investigation.

3. St Louis? amazing how Judges always rule that polls must stay open late there to let folks vote, when of course the problems were forseen and not acted upon by the Democratic board of elections and the City Council. Fraud no. Democratic incompetence, and a friendly court, absolutely.

I don't know about my fellow vast right wing conspirators, but I oppressed three poor people before lunch and a couple of minorities on my way to work. If you'll excuse me, I have some votes to steal and some money to burn. *eyeroll*

OK, more blather from the usual suspects. Big surprise when the topic is an allegation rather than an issue.

For the record, I am not a Republican, I am a partisn conservative. I have nothing to do with the Republicans, do not attend their meetings, do not give the RNC money. I have no use for them. I am certain that some power mad assholes in the Republican party do indeed seek to suppress legit votes that go against them, and that to these same assholes that means blacks.

But who with a straight face can make any case that the Democratic party is any different? Too many of our elected officials are unprincipled, power mad sociopaths. For every Scooter Libby there is a Sandy Berger. Anyone who states otherwise is either a liar, delusional, or in desperate need of a clue.

It is not a party issue, it is a corruption issue. That is why I am a conservative, the parties have nothing for me.

Last night NPR ran a story running down the list of cases of voter fraud that have been found since 2000. Since I'm an obsessive-compulsive physicist I summed the numbers in my head as they went through. The grand total came to 141 cases of voter fraud over the past six years.

On the other side, in pursuit of what are said to be anti-fraud measures, tens of thousands of voters have been mistakenly (to take everyone at their word) taken off voter rolls.

Leaving aside which benefits whom: which effect--141 or tens of thousands--merits greater attention? Which is more likely to have led to flawed election results?

When Indiana passed the voter ID law there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the usual suspects (that’s GOP code for Democrats) over the massive disenfranchisement it would cause. It smacks of a poll tax!! was the rallying cry I heard the most. Considering you could get the ID for free if you were too poor (it cost a whopping $10) that argument held little credibility with me.

Considering I have to show an ID to withdraw money from the bank, purchase an item with a credit card, or rent a movie, I simply don’t understand the resistance to what should be a no-brainer even for liberals.

And yes hdhouse, I don’t think it would take much effort to mobilize some of those zillion slave laborers into getting out the vote if you don’t have to prove who you are.

Saying either statement just marks you as a political hack of the worst order.

Voter fraud is a real problem and should be cracked down on, period. The democrats who resist commonsense laws like photo ID which are in use in virtually every other democracy in the world are simply trying to provide cover for illegal alien voting, dead people voting, multiple people voting, and need to be smacked down.

Republicans who hope to use the 'voting fraud' measures to suppress minority votes also need to be smacked down. The republicans who insist that electronic voting boxes with no paper trail are a good idea need to be smacked down hardest of all.

The fact that both sides may try to pervert the process is not an excuse to do nothing.

In partisan Republican circles, the pursuit of voter fraud is code for suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people.

Oh yeah, they were also caught LYING. Very straightforward contradiction of WH statements on Rove's, Gonzales's involvement. If all this voter fraud/competence stuff was legitimate and true, why be so consistently dishonest about it?

Hoosier Daddy said... "And yes hdhouse, I don’t think it would take much effort to mobilize some of those zillion slave laborers into getting out the vote if you don’t have to prove who you are."

And your voter ID card would just take care of the issue..believe me. But then again that would be a "put people to work" idea from the GOP...just think of the cottage industry we could have making fake ID cards. ... Why they have fake SS cards, fake driver's licenses, and now this....and how would you care to cross check which is real and which isn't?

I have created some del.icio.us bookmarks just to help bring you up to speed.

http://del.icio.us/reality_check

Check out the one from USA Today concerning a report from the United States Election Assistance Commission that found little to no evidence of the voter fraud itself that voter photo id registration schemes are claimed to stop.

Last night NPR ran a story running down the list of cases of voter fraud that have been found since 2000.

Two problems:

1) NPR is not really an objective source. I had to listen to their coverage of the 2000 Florida recount, and it was incredibly biased. Censorship by ommission, distortion of basic facts to dovetail with agenda driven reporting - so I don't trust them to investigate Dem voter fraud.

2) While they claim to have found 141 cases of voter fraud, that number only applies to those caught in the act. Its like walking in on your spouse and her lover in your bedroom, and thinking thats the first time she's cheated on you.

I also don't understand your logic. You seem to be coming at this from a death penalty mentality: better to reprieve 100 guilty men than mistakenly execute 1 innocent man. Applying that standard to voting fraud is quite a reach. People already request their credit reports and comb through them for errors, so it can't be that difficult to confirm you are on the voter rolls, or fix it if you have been mistakenly taken off.

I think we need to remember that while voting is a right, with every right comes responsibility. Its up to the voter to ensure they are registered and on the rolls, to locate his polling place, to review and understand the ballot, to present valid ID. You've got two years between elections to sort all that out.

I would love to take credit for it, but I just started a very rough version of it.

Perhaps you can have a blog post about it and all of us can help extend it and refine it?

I am the very model of a modern blogging moderateI've information controversial, gossipy, and literate,I know the kings of tv, and I quote the fights historicalFrom Survivor to Apprentice, in order categorical;

I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters confrontationalI've tangled with some bloggers, both the milquetoast and radicalOn Marcotte, Cole and Bailey I am teeming with a lot o' viewsBut politics is secondary, I just comment on the news

For my legalistic knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;But still, in matters controversial, gossipy, and literate,I am the very model of a modern modern blogging moderate

This morning, in her testimony under oath before the House Government and Oversight Committee, Valerie Plame Wilson asserted that she was in fact a covert officer at the time that columnist Robert Novak revealed her employment at the CIA. “In the run-up to the war with Iraq, I worked in the Counterproliferation Division of the CIA, still as a covert officer whose affiliation with the CIA was classified,” Plame sad in her opening testimony.

I said in the earlier discussion on Gonzales that he would resign sometime tonight. I'm sticking by that statement. If he'd been pushed out earlier this week, the White House would be having far fewer problems, IMO, because people would stop looking into this story.

Okay, Freder. You caught me. I own two more sets of white sheets than are necessary.

(That's code among Republicans, BTW, for "I'm a really fastidious guy when it comes to bedroom hygiene." Girls named "Buffy" really seem to dig that.)

Answer me this though. My absentee ballot was cast fraudulently by somebody in 2000. I was out of state on business travel on election day, and my ballot disappeared out of the mail before it ever got to me, yet showed up as having been cast when I checked with the county registrar after the fact.

How is that denial of my rights less significant than the purported black box election thefts (c.f. 2006 congressional elections)? Oh, never mind. I'm a white male. I probably deserved it...

How about this: Scan ballot with paper trail. Photo ID obtainable at any police station / DMV / military base.

The Georgia law was irresponsible. If you have a photo ID requirement, the photo ID has to be easy to get.

Now we have a situtation where both parties contribute to a degrading of the political process. In every close contest, the Democrats cry voter suppression. The Republicans cry voter fraud. Both parties challenge valid vote counts. Both parties gerrymander like mad. The result is to delegitimize fair elections (thanks Al!) in the eyes of a significant number of citizens.

So the New York Times happily contributes to this degradation by revealing the secret malicious motives of one party. Thanks guys, but I'll pass on that cool-aid.

Fen said..."[Last night NPR ran a story running down the list of cases of voter fraud that have been found since 2000, but] NPR is not really an objective source. I had to listen to their coverage of the 2000 Florida recount, and it was incredibly biased. Censorship by ommission, distortion of basic facts to dovetail with agenda driven reporting - so I don't trust them to investigate Dem voter fraud."

Agreed. I like NPR a lot, and that's all the radio I listen to, both for politics and music, but when it comes to current affairs, they have this weird conceit that they're nonpartisan. Which is absurd, of course, because they're flagrantly liberal talk radio, and there's nothing wrong with that - it's just the conceit that sticks in my craw. If they'd just admit it and move on, it'd be a lot easier to take them seriously, because then everyone knows to apply the same correctional lens they read the NYT through.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the solution to media bias isn't to change channel, it's to read widely and often.

I will note that both the notorious effort in Florida to purge voter roles seemed designed to disenfranchise black voters because of the way it compared voter roles and prison records. It purged voters only when both race and name matched on both records. Because of this, hispanic citizens, who are of predominately Cuban descent in Florida, were not purged, because they were "hispanic" on the prison roles while they would be "white" on the voter records. Blacks of course would be "

And all purged voters were given MONTHS to "fix" the mistake and "correct" any errors. The Miami mayoral race of 1998 was such a debacle with such massive fraudulent voters that the state was REQUIRED to clean up the voter rolls.

A second option is the interference with casting the vote. That can be indiscriminate purges of voters from the rolls, it can be the placement or lack thereof of voting booths and stations in districts, ... heck, it even can be Tom DeLay's congressional staff showing up in Florida and causing a minor riot outside the chad recount room and that pinchedface Secretary of State closing the count down out of "fear".

Or it could be problems with multiple recounts with significant overvotes that overturn an election. Or campaign workers slashing tires of GOV vans and the like.

This morning, in her testimony under oath before the House Government and Oversight Committee, Valerie Plame Wilson asserted that she was in fact a covert officer at the time that columnist Robert Novak revealed her employment at the CIA.

The thread diverted a bit to Plame's testimony. Has anyone of you ever determined if the CIA had Joe Wilson sign a confidentiality agreement before he went on his unpaid trip?? And if not, why didn't they?

And all purged voters were given MONTHS to "fix" the mistake and "correct" any errors. The Miami mayoral race of 1998 was such a debacle with such massive fraudulent voters that the state was REQUIRED to clean up the voter rolls.

The point is that the Florida effort I cited, by design. purged black felons (who are more likely to vote Democratic) while leaving hispanic felons (who, in Florida, are more likely to vote Republican) on the roles. This could not have been an innocent mistake as it would have been obvious to anyone who compared the two databases.

The point is that the Florida effort I cited, by design. purged black felons (who are more likely to vote Democratic) while leaving hispanic felons (who, in Florida, are more likely to vote Republican) on the roles.

No. It was done to clean up the problem with the voter rolls that became a massive scandal with the Miami mayoral race. They were REQUIRED to do so by STATE LAW.

This could not have been an innocent mistake as it would have been obvious to anyone who compared the two databases.

The company was given less than 2 full years to get in compliance with a state law. If you can think of a way to do it in less than 2 yrs without simply matching prisoner records and voter roll names and sending notices to all impacted people of how to challenge any decision, feel free to present it.-=Mike...Democrats NEED massive voter fraud to win elections apparently...

So c'mon Freder. You going to answer me or not? If concerns about vote fraud are racism, then am I being racist by being concerned about my absentee ballot being stolen out of the mails and fraudulently cast in the 2000 election?

Valerie Plame Wilson asserted that she was in fact a covert officer at the time that columnist Robert Novak revealed her employment

Awesome. Maybe she can join Libby in jail for committing perjury.

She does not meet the criteria to be a covert agent. If she had, then an actual crime would have been committed by revealing her employment with the CIA and Fitzgerald would have charged someone.

As it is, since no real crime was committed, and he knew who *actually* leaked the name ages ago, he had to content himself with trawling for conflicting testimony so he could nail someone for perjury.

This could not have been an innocent mistake as it would have been obvious to anyone who compared the two databases.

You greatly overestimate the intelligence of bureaucrats. Occam's Razor indicates we should conclude this is an example of incompetent bungling, not some sort of deep seated conspiracy against black felons.

And anyway, what's your point?

That since previous attempts to crack down on voter fraud only got rid of about half the fraud we shouldn't try any more attempts?

That's just foolish.

If your point is that crackdown on voter fraud must be enthusiastically pursued, but that elements in both parties may try to corrupt/halt the process for their own political gains and must have an eye kept on them to prevent such meddling, then I agree.

Voter fraud is serious business. The FACT of the matter is that by far voter fraud is committed by the Democratic Party. This is a holdover from there control of the big city political machines. As much as the republicans have an interest in investigating it, the democrats have an interest in sweeping it under the rug.

Be it “walking around money” given to poor inner city residents, or (more prominently) Unions organizing (unofficially) members to vote multiple times in multiple districts. My cousin who is in the Steel Workers Union tells me he has friends who vote all day…

Registering dead people, and illegal aliens – this is, and has traditionally been the province of the democrats.

What was your take when you read Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the News?

What was your take on Eric Boehlert's Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush?

When you read Media Matter's, what is your perception of their articles? (Please be specific.)

The habit of Alterman and Boehlert and Brock to blatantly lie and invent problems is second to none. If they are so blatantly ignorant to what ACTUALLY happened, then their opinion is of no use.

As for Brock, his site is a sad, sad, sad attempt to answer mrc.org, which at least tends to focus on the NEWS and not COMMENTATORS. Where can I get a job noting that commentators have an opinion?-=Mike

Admittedly, it is difficult to prove rampant vote fraud when many states don't require any sort of asking for ID-- and state Democratic parties have successfully opposed ID measures in many states. Serious people have had concerns about absentee ballots or electronic ballot boxes without paper records. But it's not that convincing to me to argue that there's little evidence of vote fraud when the situation makes it nearly impossible to gather evidence-- particularly when some politicians contribute to making it difficult to gather evidence and easy to commit fraud.

And your voter ID card would just take care of the issue..believe me. But then again that would be a "put people to work" idea from the GOP...just think of the cottage industry we could have making fake ID cards. ...

Are you implying that such a cottage industry doesn’t exist right now?

Why they have fake SS cards, fake driver's licenses, and now this....and how would you care to cross check which is real and which isn't?

How would that work?

Well lets see, how does it work now? You seem to imply that with a photo ID law the streets will be flooded with fake ids. Again you’re pointing out a hypothetical without addressing why a photo id law is bad. Should I be able to go to the bank say I am you and withdraw your money without proving who I am? If you’re going to hinge your argument on the fact that they’ll just create a cottage industry of fake ids then why not eliminate all forms of identification since it can be faked therefore it’s pointless.

The Japanese have a saying: Fix the problem, not the blame. But that would take all the fun out of the discussion, wouldn't it?

How about:

A seriously hard-to-fake, free national ID card, with a secure national database available read-only to state agencies for, among other things, voter verification. Some minimal status would be maintained, like, dead or alive. Arguments such as They can be faked so why have them? are akin to People break laws so why have laws? Stupid.

A basic literacy test for ID card issue, thus voter registration and, by extension, juror eligibility. Critical features of our country depends on an "informed" populace, and yet we don't care apparently whether voters and jurors can read or hold a coherent thought. And before the lib Dems yell DIENFRANCHISEMENT, the solution is to fix the public education system, or replace it, and perhaps have a tutoring system for voters to help with understanding of ballot issues beyong "vote Democrat."

Few things are more funny than finding the same crowd that cries forthe electronic ballot with a paper trail wanting the US Census to "estimate" our population and not actually count citizens of the US.

I've seen illegal immigrants vote. In person. For real. I've had the Democratic party in my county threaten me with a lawsuit if I continued to complain to the County registrar.

Democrats are basically (of course there are exceptions) of the mind set that the ends justify the means. Republicans are far more principled. While that doesn't make them always right, everyone knows who the real fraud party is.

Democrats are basically (of course there are exceptions) of the mind set that the ends justify the means. Republicans are far more principled. While that doesn't make them always right, everyone knows who the real fraud party is.

We seem to be seeing a bit of a conflict between two sides of what left is saying here:- There was no proof that Tim Johnson was elected using fake Indian votes, and- It was bad to fire the U.S. Atty. in NM because he wasn't zealous enough in pursuing voter fraud.

That is either somewhat hypocritical, or starts from the assumption that the Democrats do not ever practice voter fraud, and therefore Johnson was legally elected to the Senate (as was the Wash. Gov., etc.) and there was thus no reason to pursue all those allegations of voter fraud in NM.

Of course, you can't find evidence of voter fraud if you don't investigate. And if they do investigate, and don't find it, then aren't we better off that way, because it has reinforced our faith in American Democracy?

Of course, you can't find evidence of voter fraud if you don't investigate. And if they do investigate, and don't find it, then aren't we better off that way, because it has reinforced our faith in American Democracy?

Not only is Bruce Hayden right in this, but I will go one further. These investigations must start in the final weeks before the election, as the calls to the USA Gate disgruntled former employees demonstrated.

If they don't start in the final weeks before the election, with a big front page story about possible voter fraud and a candidate, then the terrorists will have won.

Oh yeah, this from a bunch of people who are constantly defending torture.

Under your loose definition of torture, if I demean a captive muslim by showing him the sole of my show, I'm a war crimminal. Thats why you define torture so loosely, not because you really care about human rights, but so you can post lines like "a bunch of people who are constantly defending torture."

You want to define with the loose version and attack with the narrow, so you can lump all your enemies into the "war criminals box" alongside Hitler, Stalin and Saddam.

I have met, personally, with General Hayden, the head of the CIA, to discuss what I can and cannot say about Ms. Wilson's service. And I want to thank him for his cooperation and help in guiding us along these lines.

My staff has also worked with the agency to ensure these remarks do not contain classified information.

I have been advised by the CIA and that even now, after all that has happened, I cannot disclose the full nature, scope and character of Ms. Wilson's service to our nation without causing serious damage to our national security interests.

But General Hayden and the CIA have cleared these following comments for today's hearing.

During her employment at the CIA, Ms. Wilson was undercover. Her employment status with the CIA was classified information, prohibited from disclosure under Executive Order 12958.

At the time of the publication of Robert Novak's column on July 14, 2003, Ms. Wilson's CIA employment status was covert. This was classified information.

Ms. Wilson served in senior management positions at the CIA, in which she oversaw the work for other CIA employees and she attained the level of GS-14, Step 6, under the federal pay scale.

Ms. Wilson worked on some of the most sensitive and highly secretive matters handled by the CIA.

Ms. Wilson served at various times overseas for the CIA.

WAXMAN: Without discussing the specifics of Ms. Wilson's classified work, it is accurate to say that she worked on the prevention of the development and use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States.

In her various positions at the CIA, Ms. Wilson faced significant risks to her personal safety and her life. She took on serious risks on behalf of our country.

Ms. Wilson's work in many situations had consequence for the security of her colleagues, and maintaining her cover was critical to protecting the safety of both colleagues and others.

The disclosure of Ms. Wilson's employment with the CIA had several serious effects. First, it terminated her covert job opportunities with the CIA. Second, it placed her professional contacts at greater risk. And third, it undermined the trust and confidence with which future CIA employees and sources hold the United States.

This disclosure of Ms. Wilson's classified employment status with the CIA was so detrimental that the CIA filed a crimes report with the Department of Justice.

As I mentioned, Ms. Wilson's work was so sensitive that even now she is still prohibited from discussing many details of her work in public because of the continuing risks to CIA officials and assets in the field and to the CIA's ongoing work.

WAXMAN: Some have suggested that Ms. Wilson did not have a sensitive position with the CIA or a position of unusual risk. As a CIA employee, Ms. Wilson has taken a lifelong oath to protect classified information, even after her CIA employment has ended. As a result, she cannot respond to most of the statements made about her.

I want to make clear, however, that any characterization that minimizes the personal risk of Ms. Wilson that she accepted in her assignments is flatly wrong. There should be no confusion on this point.

Ms. Wilson has provided great service to our nation and has fulfilled her obligation to protect classified information admirably. And we're confident she will uphold it again today.

Well, that concludes the characterizations that the CIA is permitting us to make today.

The disclosure of Ms. Wilson's employment with the CIA had several serious effects. First, it terminated her covert job opportunities with the CIA. Second, it placed her professional contacts at greater risk. And third, it undermined the trust and confidence with which future CIA employees and sources hold the United States.

Under your loose definition of torture, if I demean a captive muslim by showing him the sole of my show, I'm a war crimminal.

I never made such a ridiculous assertion. In fact if you check my post yesterday on the KSM confession you will find that I think it would be perfectly appropriate to adopt the current Army Field Manual as the standard of interrogation for the entire U.S. government.

Granted, what exactly constitutes torture is not a clear line. But civilized people (and even the State Department when they are looking for human rights abuses in other countries) consider waterboarding torture. So, I will state unequivocally that waterboarding is torture. If you want to defend the use of waterboarding, then I (and most legal authority) believe you are defending torture. Even the administration refuses to admit they are using waterboarding.

As I mentioned, Ms. Wilson's work was so sensitive that even now she is still prohibited from discussing many details of her work in public because of the continuing risks to CIA officials and assets in the field and to the CIA's ongoing work.

To continue, Ms. Wilson's work was so sensitive that even now she is prevented from appearing on the cover of Vanity Fair, except in the guise of dutiful wife to Mr. Wilson, a man, I might add, whose work -- with or without Ms. Wilson's active participation, which shall continue to go unmentioned by me -- was so sensitive that that even now I cannot say if the New York Times editorial page even exists.

CUMMINGS: On Wednesday night, I know that Mr. Waxman, our chair, and Congressman Reyes, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, spoke personally with General Hayden, the head of the CIA. And Mr. Waxman told me that Gen. Hayden said clearly and directly, “Ms. Wilson was covert.” There was no doubt about it. By the way, the CIA has authorized us to be able to say that. In addition, I understand that Chairman Waxman sent his opening statement over to the CIA to be cleared and to make sure that it was accurate. In it, he said, “Ms. Wilson was a covert employee of the CIA.” “Ms. Wilson was undercover.” The CIA cleared these statements. I emphasize all of this because I know that there are people who are still trying to suggest that what seems absolutely clear isn’t really true and that you weren’t covert. And I think one of the things we need to do in this hearing is make sure there isn’t any ambiguity on this point. Just three more questions, did you hold this covert status at the time of the leak? Did you — the covert status at the time of the leak?

WILSON: Yes I did, congressman. Yes.

CUMMINGS: Number two, the Identities Protection Act refers to travel outside the United States within the last five years. Let me ask you this question. Again, we don’t want classified information, dates, locations, or any other details. During the past five years, Ms. Plame, from today, did you conduct secret missions overseas?

WILSON: Yes I did, congressman.

CUMMINGS: Finally, so as to be clear for the record, you were a covert CIA employee and within the past five years from today, you went on secret missions outside the United States. Is that correct?

hey ... did you catch that great stuff with the WH Security Chief...Knobell or something....the guy who looked like a deer in headlights....

q. After the president said he was going to launch a full investigation into who leaked Valerie ...did you launch any such investigation?a. No.q. Did you question anyone?a. Noq. Did you do anything?a. No

Much as I'd enjoy pitching in on the unpacking, a work life can be a demanding thing.

I suggest you look to tactics used by Republicans in their efforts to stamp out this voter fraud only they can see. Armed individuals deterring voters in AZ, and much more. I think NAACP has some info, Southern Poverty Law Center, etc.

There was also a judicial ruling in the past few weeks comparing the Voter ID push, occurring in states around the country, to the poll tax and thorwing it out.

And, it bears mentioning that many of us in America today see no reason to take anything the Bushies say at face value. They lie so often. On the USA purge, they told us it was Harriet M's idea. Well, now we find out it's spawn of Karl Rove.

These are not people that good people should be making excuses for. Some things transcend partisan politics, and our legal system's intergrity is one of them.

Here's an interesting comment from a purged Republican USA: Still uncertain exactly why he was fired, former U.S. Atty. H.E. "Bud" Cummins III wonders whether it had something to do with the probe he opened into alleged corruption by Republican officials in Missouri amid a Senate race there that was promising to be a nail-biter.snip, snip....In an interview Thursday, Cummins expressed disgust that the Bush administration may have fired him and the others for political reasons. "You have to firewall politics out of the Department of Justice. Because once it gets in, people question every decision you make. Now I keep asking myself: 'What about the Blunt deal?' "

Oh reader_iam, we are "unpacking" it. We've discussed it, posted links, bookmarked links on deli.cio.us, pointed to those people who have written about this extensively in the past, so now that you have read those all those links, what is your take on it?

And while people are doing their research, we are bringing them up to speed on current events, those things that you'all were disclaiming just a few weeks ago.

I would love a Althouse Valerie Plame thread to unpack today's findings. It should be amusing to watch the goalposts shift as they have in here. Already we are hearing that okay, okay, she was covert, but that doesn't matter, blah blah blah.

So let's unpack lots of the crap you folks have been tossing out for years....

But again Reader_iam, what are your thoughts with regards to the links that I have already posted?

Anytime vote fraud happens, it effectively "disenfranchises" a legitimate voter on the other side by nulling that vote out.

That is why it is a serious crime, IMO, and must be vigorously guarded against and prosecuted when it happens.

My favorite story was from St Louis in 1984. A "black leader" was standing outside a polling place complaining about blacks lacking free buses to get to the polls as a deliberate conspiracy to hold down the vote. About cops at certain polling places "intimidating" voters. Supporters began saying "Amen!" "Happened to me!" "Cop asked for my ID!"

Then a wino stepped out and shouted to the cameras "Yeah, happened to me too! 3 of the 4 places I was told to go and vote the MF-rs intimidated me because I was black. It's racial discrimination. A MF-ing disgrace! I had a JOB to do!"

In partisan Republican circles, given that we are pure unadulterated satan worshipping evil (at least to the editorial page of the NYT), why would we need to use coded language when talking about suppressing minorities and poor people?

(and doesn't it say more about the NYT that they always equate the two, in the NYT worldview poor=minority and vice versa)

The situation in New Mexico should have been investigated vigorously if for no other reason than to prove that there *wasn't* fraud involved in our last elections.

We moved to paper ballots as requried by law and this is how it worked... some places did not have paper ballots delivered. In many areas even early voting was so backed up that people gave up and didn't vote. Local liberal bloggers complained that (I particularly liked this one) early voting felt like leaving a letter at a Guatamalan post office. The ballot counting machine looked like a paper shredder and counted the ballot only, it didn't read it so there was no immediate vote count of any sort available, even a provisional one, and nothing to compare later vote counts against. Worse, there was no double check "this is how your ballot is read, are these votes correct" function. The ballot disappeared.

It took weeks and weeks and weeks to get the ballots counted and then half the time they didn't seem to be able to find them. Volunteers sat for hours and hours to re-count a single ballot. Where were the freaking ballots? And when they finally found a few ballots here and there, where did they come from?

That this should have been investigated *vigorously* is a no-brainer of the first order. Most likely it was stupidity rather than malice but it could have been malice and shouldn't we want to know?

I've been reading about the U.S. attorney story since Josh started talking about it weeks ago. (I have some Google alerts related to US attorneys for reasons not related to this story.) Got especially interested in it after reading Lithwick's piece in Slate two weeks ago today about some changes in process that alarmed me. I was then away from blogging for more than a week and a half for reasons that won't interest you, personally, or I would have posted on that particular article and the issues it raised.

But the number one reason I haven't posted on this topic since coming back is that I went to college with one of the people whose names is now, as opposed to two weeks ago, being bandied about (served on student goverment with him, as it happens, and he was my absolute favorite person to fght with--we were often of different opinions, but because we were both vociferous and opinionated people who liked a good argument, it was tremendous fun). I haven't spoken to that person in more than two decades, but he is one of a number of people on whom I've had a Google alert for years.

I have some opinions and instincts based on my (admittedly old and limited contextually) knowledge of that person and following his career. But I'm also an ex-daily newspaper journalist and a current assistant editor for a journal. I am skeptical of mind by temperament and training and blindly loyal to no one (blood is mostly water, if you ask me--or my family, even). Until I can satisfy my need for certain facts which so far are not available --and yes, I've read many, many, many things (no offense, but I don't need you to find links for me: I'm a king-hell Googler and excellent researcher, and an extremely disciplined and prolific reader)--and feel 100% sure I'm not letting past affiliations in any way color my analysis (meaning, being too hard or too easy), I'm not going to post on specific cases or the larger narrative of this story.

This is partly why I was interested in Althouse's post today and seeing what people had to say. Mostly I'm seeing retreads of innuendo and inference. This is pretty much true everywhere I go. I don't think that this is so much a product of axe-grinding, from either side, but rather that the axe-grinding is the result of there being a real dearth of publicly available facts and statements from the people involved. I don't think this story has found its legs yet. Well, that's not quite right. I think it's found some legs in terms of some of the dismissed USA's; I think it has legs in terms of the changes in procedure that were slipped in a while back; and I think it has legs in terms of the abysmal way that Gonzales et al have handled the situation (sooo typical).

Where I DON'T think it yet has legs is the broader, implied (well, in some cases, not implied but outright stated) narrative, which is that the eight USA's who were dismissed are automatically the only just and true and best and incorruptible ones and that the other 75 therefore must be at best ass-kissing and at worst corrupt, by definition. I don't buy that (I mean, think about it just in terms of sheer numbers and probabilities, if you must--how likely is that, really?), and I'd like to see more facts individually addressed and less innuendo. I'd like to see some fire, not some smoke. I'd like to see journalists in each state do some in-depth work, and if it doesn't pan out, say so.

Otherwise, it's just one big, broad-brush smear job that does nothing to improve our system or to winnow out the competent from the truly incompetent and the truly corrupt from the pack, but mainly serves to give partisans a post against which to rub their itches.

Considering I have to show an ID to withdraw money from the bank, purchase an item with a credit card, or rent a movie, I simply don’t understand the resistance to what should be a no-brainer even for liberals.

I don't understand it, either. They finally started asking for identification last election in my county. Cuyahoga County, Ohio - known as a place with high voter fraud and other shady election activities. And it's not a big deal. They don't even require it to be a picture ID, it just has to have your name and address (like a utility bill). What's the problem with that compared with no one caring at all who you are?

For years I'd go vote and realize no one cared who I really was. I'd look in the book where I'd sign my name, and my brother's name was there, even though he'd informed them he moved away ages ago, and even though I'd point that out when I voted. They just never, ever update their records and remove names of people who haven't lived there in years. Anyone could've signed his name and voted, or any other name in the book where they know the person isn't showing up. I'm pretty sure someone who really wanted to could vote multiple times across the county.

If that's paranoid, so what? It's good to be a little paranoid about the elections. The just convicted people from the Cuyahoga Board of Elections this week for rigging the 2004 recount. The shadiness goes in all directions. Clean it up.

But I think you can join Revenant and myself as we call for an independent prosecutor to find out where this leads.

Not sure what you were smoking when you imagined that. I don't agree with your opinion that large numbers of BDS sufferers squealing "eeeee!" is sufficient grounds for an independent prosecutor. There has to be actual reason to think that (a) serious crimes occurred and (b) they aren't being investigated by the Justice Department.

The only crime that there's any indication of here is that of lying to Congress, which I've already noted is a nonsensical crime I don't think ANYBODY should be prosecuted for.

I'm surprised the Democrat Partisans on this Blog forgot their history:

Tamany Hall in NYC, and the Pendergast machine in MO.

When I was still a Democrat in NYC in the days when Democrats acted like adults, I learned how to adjust a voting machine a few ways to get the votes needed. I learned from my days as a democrat how to mis-count votes in the counting room. When I became a Republican, I learned, how to bring in more voters. I learned how to speak to a crowd about my candidate. It seems Republicans had more faith in the counting room then Democrats.

Bad analogy. You obviously have no knowledge of how the SEC & NYSE work re Inside Trading & how NYSE computers, for example, detect inside trading. There’s no Democrat or Republican support for Inside Trading as there is for voter fraud & the Grey Lady does not think or pretend that pursuit of inside traders, tippers, etc. is code word for anything. And the NYT is not willing to excuse Inside Traders as it is to excuse the 21st Century Democratic Party version of Bosses Tweed or Daley.

FYI, here’s how the thing works. Some wise-guy insider who works for a soon-to-be acquirer or acquiree or for a company which has just discovered the cure for cancer asks some of his friends & relatives to (a) buy stock in such company before the public release of the proposed acquisition or discovery & (b) sell the stock as soon as its price has risen to a certain number. Usually, this insider tells 'em to buy small amounts because he thinks that such minimal buys will slide under the radar. Trust me, computer "bells" go off. Especially if all traders are in the same Zip Code.

Also, brokers have a "know your customer" rule.

When the dust settles, while the SEC then has a record of the named fortunate traders only, the scenario continues like this for each of them when he/she appears at the nearest SEC office: OK, Mr./Ms. Doe we know that you don’t know stock trading from sock trading, & we don’t think that you’re inherently a miscreant; in fact, we think that some miscreant led you astray, & we want him. So if you agree to a consent decree admitting that you “didn’t do it & won’t do it again”, then pay a fine equal to 3X the $9,999.99 profit you made on this buy/sale, & finally, & most important, tell us who tipped you, we, your friendly SEC representatives, are gonna give you a get-out-of jail card free! (Literally, “We’re not gonna refer your case to the Justice Dept.) Result? “Under a spreading chestnut tree, I betrayed you…." Works every time.

So if you think that the SEC is as naive as Dem Party sycophants like the NYT & commenters on this thread, & you get such a tip about the company for which you work, just go tell your ancient grandma, your ne'er do well cousin, your felonious brother, & your greedy neighbor to open their first brokerage accounts, immediately buy stock in your company, & sell after the press release is issued.

But The NYT would excuse Democrat vote fraud even if it had the smoking gun as in the SEC cases, because, ya see, it knows that the Republicans really, really lost in 2000, 2002, & 2004. Vote fraud in 2006? Nevermind.

New York — IN a third-floor Flower District walkup with bare wooden floors, plain white walls and an excitable toy poodle named Simon, six guys dressed mainly in T-shirts and jeans sit all day in front of computer screens at desks arranged around the oblong room's perimeter, pecking away at their keyboards and, bit by bit, at the media establishment.